What do you think? I have the last 5 topics from certain forums on my fourms on the front page (is there a better name for that then the name of a crappy html editor I am of Mac).

Also if you wonder over to http://macwrite.dhs.org you will find the developemental version of the site (God I love Mac OS X).

Here are some questions I need answered

1. What do you think of the navigation at the top of the site? I don't want to use images. I want to keep page loading fast. Any ideas out to containerize the navigation, so that it doesn't just site there out of place?

2. Any ideas on how to structure the tidbits/info on the column series on the side, so they are more attractive and catch your atttention?

3. Any ideas on how to fill up the side columns of the page (other then use that for recent posts to the forums)?

4. How to containerize those blasted but advertsing genrating clicks (to my site) banner exchange banners at the bottom?

And overall, what do you think of the site in general?

P.S. the developemental server is the most current (and has features I have added, that aren't on the main page). It also is only on when I am not sleeping (12pm-3am).

Thanks

Most of the issues you raise could be dealt with simply with a bit of CSS. The advantage of that is it's virtually zero in file size (short of the html code). I suppose the issue would be, as you're aiming at the Mac crowd the chances of it not showing might be bigger than the PC crowd, with Mac browsers not being great supporters of CSS. Images wouldbe a better all round option and compressed right should come in at less than 1k each which makes for virtually instant loading anyway.

You logo comes in at 8k, so it might be possible to crunch that a little as well, just by looking at it.

I'm not sure about the forum on the front page. It's reminds me of the issue I have with receller.com in that it's squashed in to a point where it looks cumbersome (I'm at 800x600 here) You might want to give yourself some more room by shortening the width of the mailing list form too.

I suppose the banners could go in some sort of different colored 'bar' across the screen. With a little inventiveness they would just become a part of the footer. :)

That's about all that springs to mind right now...

Greg Moore